Hasta Siempre

To my readers, dear friends and students,

A still of Ruben's narration from "One Tango Moment"

I want to thank you for your support and friendship all these years that I’ve lived outside of my homeland. I left Los Angeles in 2001, and during those 13 years was only able to visit my family and L.A. peeps every year or so. It has been an amazing journey—I found not only love with Ruben Aybar, but a new profession as a teacher of tango, as well as publishing a memoir about those expat years, The Church of Tango. And currently I’ve just finished a prequel memoir, Arabesque: Dancing on the Edge in Los Angeles, which will be released soon. (You can check out what's happening at www.MirasolPress.com.

Now it is time for me to go home. I leave for L.A. July 1^st.

Even though it is my choice, my heart is breaking to leave Ruben, my pets and garden, my gorgeous rented apartment in Boedo that has seen so much tango and so many asados and friendly gatherings on its broad, scenic terrace. To leave the life that I've built here over 11 years.

And now I have to start over. Again. But it is time.

Ruben will continue teaching and taxi dancing. He can be contacted at 155-799-2038. Working with him to share our tango vision with enthusiastic students has been my greatest pleasure here in Argentina. (He doesn’t check his email very often—rubentango@gmail.com, but contacting him via Facebook works too.) He is an amazing teacher, and a warm-hearted, generous, honest person. I hope one day he can get a visa to visit the U.S. for a couple of weeks, his dream--and mine too. I want so much for him to see my country, at least my home town of L.A., and meet my friends and family. He has no desire to live there--after all, he has thirteen grandchildren and three great-grandchildren of his own in Buenos Aires. And so he understands my need now to be with mine.

I’ve met many, many incredible people from all over the world here in our Boedo studio. As Ruben always says, people come to us as students but leave as friends, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to have met hundreds of dancers I otherwise wouldn’t know. And who I hope to see again one day at a milonga in one part of the world or another.

And what about tangocherie? I probably won't be updating this blog, but I won't be taking it down either, just in case someone may find one of my more than 700 posts since 2006 interesting or useful. Perhaps I'll start a new one--L.A. Cherie! We'll just have to wait and see what happens in Los Angeles.

I dream to come back to visit Buenos Aires from time to time, but nothing is certain.

Thank you, Argentina, for giving me Ruben, the tango, la cultura gauchesca, Gauchito Gil, waterfalls and glaciers, painted deserts, la Pachamama, land of seven lakes, the Delta of Tigre, penguins, and Papa Pancho. And the world of the milonga, unique to Buenos Aires and forever my “home.”

Hasta la proxima…con besos, amor, y abrazos bien milonguero!

Your tangocherie